Sea surface temperature—the temperature of the water at the ocean surface—is an important physical attribute of the world's oceans. The surface temperature of the world's oceans varies mainly with latitude, with the warmest waters generally near the equator and the coldest waters in the Arctic and Antarctic regions.
Covering more than 70 percent of the Earth's surface and containing about 97 percent of its surface water, the ocean stores vast amounts of energy in the form of heat. The ocean receives most of its heat along the equator, where incoming solar radiation is about double that received at the poles.
At low latitudes, near the equator, direct overhead sunlight received all year warms surface waters. At high latitudes, ocean waters receive less sunlight – the poles receive only 40 percent of the heat that the equator does.
The waters of the Pacific Ocean comprise the world's largest heat reservoir, by far, and it is the warmest ocean, overall, of the world's five oceans. (The other oceans are the Arctic, Antarctic and Indian Oceans.)
When sunlight reaches the Earth's surface, the world's oceans absorb some of this energy and store it as heat. This heat is initially absorbed at the surface, but some of it eventually spreads to deeper waters. Currents also move this heat around the world.
The Indian Ocean has the warmest surface temperature of all the world¹s oceans, as most of it is found in the tropics.
The ocean's surface layer, home to most marine life, takes most of this heat. As a result, the top 700 meters (2,300 feet) of the global ocean has warmed about 1.5°F since 1901.
The quick answer to which side of Australia has warmer waters is the Northern coast in the Northern Territory with temperatures lingering around 28 to 32 degrees Celcius all year round.
Yes, the ocean is continuing to warm. Notably, all ocean basins have been experiencing significant warming since 1998, with more heat being transferred deeper into the ocean since 1990.
Pacific coast is colder than Atlantic coast.
See what a year looks like in Svalbard, Norway, the fastest-warming place on Earth.
Some ocean regions are warming faster than others, the study found. The Atlantic Ocean is warming the fastest, reporting the largest area-averaged warming at 1.42 joule per square metre.
It has become common to focus on the fastest-warming places, regions where human-charged climate change is raising temperatures at an alarming speed. In the Arctic, where sea ice is rapidly disappearing, warming may be occurring more than four times faster than anywhere else on the planet.
RCP2. 6 assumes high technological development, and a levelling off of greenhouse emissions by 2050, followed by a return to 2020 levels by 2100. This pathway predicts a rise in global sea surface temperature of 0.8°C by 2050, and 1.2°C by 2100, relative to 1870–1899 temperatures.
There will be more plastic than fish
Rivers of pollution flow into the ocean every day, with little sign of slowing down. Marine animals and birds now regularly eat plastic, and so do humans. It is estimated that by 2050 there could be more plastic in the sea than fish. As the plastic piles up, fish disappear.
Climate Change
The data shows the Earth is warming and it's up to us to make the changes necessary for a healthier planet.
The warmest region by annual maxima is the north-west, where summers are extremely hot, but winters relatively cooler and dry.
Darwin, Northern Territory
Darwin in the Northern Territory has a tropical climate with a wet and dry season. In Darwin, the average annual temperature is 27.4°C. It is the city in Australia with the highest average temperature and the highest average monthly maximum temperature.
If you are wanting to get colder water you'll have to head to the mountains. Snowy River, Lake Crackenback, Thredbo River and Mount Kosciuszko all have water ranging from 3 degrees to 9 degrees, with the Murray River sitting between 6 to 8 degrees during winter.
Reliable ocean temperature measurements stretch back to 1940 but it is likely the oceans are now at their hottest for 1,000 years and heating faster than any time in the last 2,000 years.
This is because land has a smaller “heat capacity” than water, which means it needs less heat to raise its temperature. The chart below shows how the Earth's land surface (yellow line) has warmed more rapidly than the ocean (dark blue) over the observational record.
The top few meters of the ocean store as much heat as Earth's entire atmosphere. So, as the planet warms, it's the ocean that gets most of the extra energy. More than 90% of the global warming is going into the ocean.
Looking at the entire oceans, however, the Pacific Ocean is by far the warmest overall ocean because it has about four times the intense sun-heated surface area in the tropics compared with the Atlantic Ocean.
The South Pacific is the least polluted of the world's oceans. There are about 150 million metric tons of plastic in the oceans and a further 8 million metric tons are added to the oceans annually.
The Mariana Trench, in the Pacific Ocean, is the deepest location on Earth. According to the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), the United States has jurisdiction over the trench and its resources. Scientists use a variety of technologies to overcome the challenges of deep-sea exploration and explore the Trench.